Natalia Rosenfeld
Stark Industries Years later, Romanoff later drew an assignment working in the Stark Industries Legal Department under the alias of Natalie Rushman. The ulterior motive was for her to keep an eye on Tony Stark after he signed his company over to Pepper Potts. In reality, Romanoff had been assigned by S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury to assess whether he was suitable for the Avengers Initiative, a plan to bring together a group of people with unparalleled talents. Stark ran a search on her and discovered that she was fluent in French, Russian, Latin; and had done some modeling in Japan at some point. Romanoff became Tony's new assistant while he was in Monaco. She also flirted with him at his birthday party when he started to get suspicious about where she had come from. Working With Iron Man She arrived at a meeting Fury was having with Tony Stark in Randy's Donuts, where Fury revealed her true name and affiliation. Natasha, along with Fury and Agent Phil Coulson, went to Tony's house and she was told by Fury that she was to remain in position as an assistant. Later at Stark Industries, while Tony was visiting Pepper Potts, Natasha walked in and requested for Potts to sign something. When Potts left, Tony started to grill Natasha and told her that he found it amazing that she could remain so calm undercover. When Tony claimed that she could not speak other languages, Natasha replied in Latin, then repeated herself in English, telling him that he could, "Either get, or be collected." Romanoff attended the next Stark Expo, where Justin Hammer of Hammer Advanced Weapons Systems unveiled his new Hammer Drones and the War Machine Armor worn by Lt. Col. James Rhodes. Stark also arrived uninvited in his new and improved Iron Man Armor to warn Rhodes about an impending attack from Ivan Vanko. It was then that Vanko surprised everyone by remotely gaining control of both the Hammer Drones and the War Machine Armor. While Stark led the immediate threat of the machines away from the Expo, Potts and Romanoff confronted Hammer demanding to know Vanko's location. Romanoff put him in a neck lock and broke one of his glasses' lenses to force his confession. She then had Happy Hogan drive her to the nearest Hammer Industries facility, where Vanko was controlling the drones. Once at the site, Romanoff left Happy to deal with a lone security guard while she penetrated deep into the facility and systematically disabled many more of the security force. Vanko had already abandoned his control systems and left by the time Romanoff found them. She quickly set about restoring control of the War Machine Armor to Rhodes and was also able to radio tactical data, initially warned Rhodes and Stark of an incoming wave of drones and another armored battlesuit, this one worn by Vanko. She then proceeded to steal Hammer's development projects and fled before the police came to the facility, just as it exploded. The Big Guy Following this, Natasha was assigned to a new mission: trail the runaway scientist Bruce Banner because the agent previously assigned to the case, Agent Jasper Sitwell, had been redeployed to Puente Antiguo. She first came across him during the military siege at Culver University, where he became the Hulk right before her. Fury ordered her not to let General Thaddeus Ross take the Hulk away, but his own destructive force prevented her from doing anything more than report on his fight with Sgt. Emil Blonsky. She later headed to Harlem, New York to continue S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attempts to prevent Banner from being taken by the military, but arrived too late. Fury sent her to meet Dr. Samuel Sterns and make sure Banner left nothing he could work with. After an encounter with the Abomination (Blonsky's new monstrous form), she headed to Sterns' lab where she found him trapped. His head had become grotesquely deformed and he began raving, going on to ask Natasha to join him, but she rejected his offer by shooting his kneecap. Having caught a glimpse of the Hulk's highly destructive battle with the Abomination in the distance, she reported to Fury that the entire situation involving not only the Hulk, but also Tony Stark's inventions and the Asgardians' arrival in Puente Antiguo had become too much for S.H.I.E.L.D. to handle as it was. Around a year later, while in the middle of interrogating Georgi Luchkov, Romanoff received a call from Agent Coulson informing her of her next mission. She was to approach Banner, who had retreated to Calcutta, and enlist his aid in locating the Tesseract, a dangerous object that had been stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. by the Asgardian Loki, who had also taken Agent Barton. Even though the thought of Banner's immensely powerful alter ago terrified her, Romanoff carried out the assignment with aplomb and soon had Banner on board. Wading Into A War Her next assignment was to apprehend Loki with Steve Rogers (aka "Captain America"). The mission was successful, although it took the combined skills of Rogers, Tony Stark in his Iron Man armor, and Natasha herself at the gun controls of a S.H.I.E.L.D. jet to subdue him. On the return trip, they also encountered Loki's brother Thor, who had plans of his own to retrieve Loki and the Tesseract. Natasha's skills as an interrogator made her a prime choice for extracting information from Loki once S.H.I.E.L.D. had him in custody. She adeptly tricked the trickster into revealing that Loki planned on releasing the Hulk on the team, although his manipulative responses had also hit their mark (citing unspecified incidents presumably from past missions involving Sao Paulo, the daughter of an individual named Dreykov and a hospital fire), and Romanoff became increasingly obsessive about finding restitution for her past. Foremost in these thoughts was her need to wrest Agent Barton from Loki's control, but she found that she didn't have to search. Instead, Barton, under Loki's control, came to them. Barton, leading a commando team against the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, caused an explosion that collapsed part of the ceiling on Romanoff and Banner. This triggered Banner's transformation into the Hulk and rapidly escalated the problem of enemy infiltration to a chaotic two-front war, with Romanoff barely escaping the Hulk's ferocity with her life. During the chaos she also encountered Agent Barton, and engaged him in a lengthy brawling duel that only ended when blows to his head knocked him unconscious. Battle of New York Loki's escape presented a fresh problem for the survivors of the attack. Romanoff attended to her old partner while others counted their losses, but she was quick to join them once they had resolved to go on the offensive. Following Loki to Manhattan, Romanoff and the others were confronted by the sight of a huge dimensional rift above the city. Loki's army, a horde of Chitauri warriors, came pouring through and Romanoff found herself again battling in close quarters, this time against an alien foe bent on world domination. The martial arts skills and small arms of the Black Widow were ideal for battling the Chitauri in the streets, and when her own weaponry was spent, she made good use of Chitauri armaments turned on their previous owners. Eventually she captured one of their aircraft and used it to reach the top of Stark Tower where she was instrumental in dealing with the device that held the portal open, thus sealing the rift and barring the amassed forces still waiting to pass through. When the battle was over, Romanoff gathered with the others to see off Thor and the captive Loki. The threat had been neutralized and for a time the world would have little need of its protectors. The others went their separate ways, while Romanoff and Barton returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. Spies and Soldiers Black Widow became a frequent comrade-in-arms of Captain America when they were assigned on missions together. They became the co-leaders of the counter-terrorist team S.T.R.I.K.E. During one rescue mission of a hijacked S.H.I.E.L.D. ship, Nick Fury assigned Black Widow a secret side task to retrieve confidential protected S.H.I.E.L.D. files in a flash drive. The data was more sensitive than she could have guessed, and once it was handed over to Fury he became the target of an assassin. When Romanoff heard that Fury had been gunned down she went to the hospital to keep vigil, and watched helplessly as he was declared dead. Based on Steve's description of the shooter, she identified the killer as the Winter Soldier. After hiding details of Fury's death, Steve became a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D. under the orders of Secretary Alexander Pierce. Natasha joined him to help him retrieve the confidential files from the flash drive, which Fury had already given to Rogers. Natasha tried to hack the protected files but could only discover the location from where they were created, Camp Lehigh. The Hydra Conspiracy There, Steve and Natasha discovered a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base where the consciousness of Arnim Zola revealed that after World War II, he had been recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D., and that he and other German scientists had furthered Hydra's plans for world domination through numerous projects, including the infiltration of and influence on S.H.I.E.L.D. Romanoff interrupted Zola's lengthy exposition of Hydra's activities when her PDA alerted her to an incoming missile. She and Rogers narrowly escaped the resulting blast, and then left the scene before S.H.I.E.L.D. could find them. The following day, Steve and Natasha sought help from Sam Wilson, who they then pulled into their circle of allies by recovering a flight-exoskeleton for him. The trio then captured and interrogated Agent Sitwell to find out about the conspiracy festering within S.H.I.E.L.D. Under pressure, Sitwell revealed his allegiance to Hydra and that Hydra planned to use Project Insight to massacre the millions of people identified as threats to Hydra's new world order. Taking Down S.H.I.E.L.D. Natasha, Steve, and Sam were later attacked by the Winter Soldier and a team of Hydra double agents, led by their former S.T.R.I.K.E. teammate Agent Brock Rumlow. Natasha suffered a bullet wound to her shoulder while trying to elude the Winter Soldier, and Steve was left stunned by the revelation that the Winter Soldier was his old friend Bucky Barnes. With the fight taken out of them, the three heroes were easily captured by S.H.I.E.L.D., but while being transported under guard they were rescued by a disguised Agent Maria Hill who brought them to a hideout where Nick Fury was alive and recuperating. Fury revealed a plan to prevent Pierce from launching Project Insight, involving the replacement of the controller chip of each one of the helicarriers. Natasha infiltrated the Triskelion disguised as Councilwoman Hawley of the World Security Council and was taken hostage with the other councillors by Pierce as he had already been given an notice that Hawley could not come. soon after, Captain America revealed over the public address system the truth about Hydra controlling S.H.I.E.L.D., and Pierce being their leader. The coup failed as Black Widow had already been captured and sent to Daniel Whitehall. Faustus method Natalia later appeared in in a secret Hydra facility where she was made to comply to Hydra's wishes. In a report by Shunil Bakshi it took 4 weeks for her to comply. Natalia was given the alias Green Widow and appeared for the first time after joining Hydra when her former friends were under the same program she once was. Natalia came into the room and stood beside Whitehall. Germanization Act As every other citizen of Republic of Hydra she had to go through the Germanization Act. Natalia got to keep her first name, but had to change her last name to Rosenfeld. Avengers Reassembled With the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. and rise of Hydra, the turned Avengers were assembled under Hydra goverance. Loki's Sceptre, which had been in the midst of so much conflict during the Battle of New York, fell into the hands of Hydra's Baron Strucker, and Rosenfeld soon rejoined her Avengers teammates to have a closer look at his experiments. During this time, she developed a particular connection with Bruce Banner, to the extent that she came to develop the 'Lullaby' system, where she would calm the Hulk down after the immediate mission had been concluded so that he could return to Bruce Banner. Their mission took them to Strucker's Hydra research base in Sokovia where the alien device had been used in experiments to create enhanced soldiers. Rosenfeld was impressed and ordered further research in creating soldiers for the S.T.R.I.K.E Team. Fresh from victory, the Avengers returned to the newly remodeled Avengers Tower in New York and threw a party to celebrate. Late in the evening when most of the guests had gone home, the men tested their worthiness trying to lift Mjölnir, but each of them were unsuccessful. The game was interrupted when one of Tony Stark's Iron Legion robots made a surprise appearance, and after admitting that it was the result of Stark's Ultron program mixed with his research into the sceptre, it and several more like it, attacked the group. Rosenfeld took cover behind the wet bar and drew a pistol concealed there to help with the fight, interrupted briefly at one point to drag Dr. Banner in after her. The attack was a diversion however, and one of the robots made off with the sceptre while the Avengers and their friends were engaged in battle. When reports of robots attacking sources of Vibranium began surfacing, the Avengers raced to a coastal scrapyard in Africa where Stark believed that a substantial quantity of the rare metal might be stored. They arrived shortly after Ultron and its two enhanced allies, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximilian. A fight broke out with the Avengers trying to stop Ultron taking Vibranium from the site, and Rosenfeld found herself incapacitated by Wanda's power to instil nightmare visions. She languished in a scene from her childhood while the fight carried on around her and the enemy made their escape. Still haunted by the ghosts of her past, Rosenfeld had a welcome respite when Barton took the group to his farm, and the laughter of his two children welcoming their "Aunty Natalia" helped to wash away her troubles. She also had time to speak privately with Banner and discuss their feelings for each other, even suggesting that they could depart together, but Banner was quick to point out that there was nowhere that she could be safe with him. Nick Fury also arrived at the farm and spoke with the group at length about stopping Ultron. After Banner made the observation that Ultron was trying to evolve, the remaining Avengers split into two groups with Green Widow joining Captain Hydra and Hawkeye in a bid to stop Ultron from obtaining cellular regeneration technology in South Korea. The trio raced for their objective, and found that Ultron's plan to create a new android body for itself were already well underway, but the Avengers' arrival caused it to grab the body and flee. Barton located Ultron escaping in a truck trailer in heavy traffic, and when a window of opportunity presented itself Rosenfeld dropped to the streets on a motorcycle to pursue it herself. She and Rogers managed to jointly fend off a number of Ultron sentries, and although Rosenfeld was successful in delivering the dormant android to Barton, she was captured by the robots shortly thereafter. When she awoke, Rosenfeld found that she had been transported back to Sokovia, where Ultron made a show of demonstrating his latest upgrade before confining her to a cell. She turned to using old Cold War-era communication techniques in a bid to expose her location without being detected, but could do little else but sit and wait. Endgame Barton did indeed receive her signal, and eventually she was treated to the welcome sight of Bruce Banner sneaking in alone to free her while the other Avengers, and their new allies, made a show of confronting Ultron outside. Rosenfeld forced Banner's transformation, and then they too joined the fight to stop the robot. The Avengers fought hard to break the ranks of Ultron's amassed robot force in the Sokovian city. As the battle wound down, Rosenfeld and Barton turned their attention to evacuating the civilian populace, but soon she received the call to "sing a lullaby" to the Hulk, and calm him back to his more human state. Her calming technique was interrupted by Ultron, at the controls of the Avengers' very own quinjet, raking the Hulk with gunfire. The Hulk grabbed Rosenfeld and bore her to safety on a newly arrived Hydra helicarrier before leaping after Ultron to vent his rage. Rosenfeld soon learned that the Hulk had won over Ultron in the departing quinjet and appealed to him through a video link to disengage the plane's stealth technology, but the Hulk simply severed the connection. After Ultron's defeat, the Avengers returned to New York. Abandoning the city, they began setting up a new base in Upstate New York for a significantly restructured team, after several Avengers chose to either retire or depart Earth. Rosenfeld- although mourning Bruce's departure- joining Rogers in welcoming the four new Avengers - Sam Wilson, Col. James Rhodes, Wanda Maximoff, and the Vision. Personal Assassin Following the events in Sokovia, Natalia returned to the Triskelion for further orders from her superiors. Soon after her arrival she was called in to report to Alexander Pierce’s office and over the next few weeks she only had to answer to him. Following her meeting with Pierce she was sent to hunt down any former S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and threats to the government. |Aliases = Green Widow, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, Natalie Rushman, Councilwoman Hawley|Affiliation = Hydra (Brainwashed through Faustus method), Hydra's Avengers, formerly Hydra Strike Team, S.H.I.E.L.D|BaseOfOperations = Mobile, New Avengers Facility, Triskelion, Hydra Helicarrier; formerly Red Room, Russia|Identity = Public|Citizenship = Hydrion|Citizenship2 = Russian|MaritalStatus = Single|Occupation = Avenger, Hydra Agent|Education = Graduate of the Red Room|Gender = Female|Height = 5' 6"|Eyes = Green|Hair = Green (dyed from red)|Origin = Human and Hydra operative; Former KGB and S.H.I.E.L.D. operative|Universe = Earth-200000|PlaceOfBirth = Volgograd, USSR, Russia}}